


Super Trouper

by messofthejess



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Pop Star AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 18:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8337394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messofthejess/pseuds/messofthejess
Summary: Marie is a member of the international pop group M.M.K.A. and has a bad case of missing her boyfriend.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DollyPop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/gifts).



            Marie did love touring, she really did. Aside from when Kami got snippy about messing up her choreography or Azusa was riding their manager about everything in their rider (Did they have enough mineral water? Diva Cups? Good God, did they have enough M&Ms, and could the runner _not_ accidentally mix them with Reese’s Pieces this time so Mira didn’t have an allergy attack that required hospitalization and three cancelled tour dates?), it was fun. M.M.K.A. was an international smash hit, and so help her if she wasn’t going to see it through to the end.

            The problem was the end didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight. Every day was largely the same: wake up, eat, first rehearsal, eat, sign autographs or meet and greet with fans, go for a quick coffee run if time allowed, second rehearsal, and then the show. Then pass out on whatever mildly soft surface Marie could find in the backstage chaos afterwards—sometimes she made it to the tour bus, sometimes she slept on Azusa’s shoulder and complained of a stiff neck in the morning—and do it all over again. She felt like a mic was constantly wired in her ear even when it wasn’t, waiting for her to burst into song. She was pretty sure that body glitter was physically embedded in her skin at this point, and she’d probably sparkle in the light long after she’d nodded off in some nursing home. Marie was _exhausted_ , to put it frankly. Fans were lovely, and they put food in the mini-fridges and cash in their producers’ pockets and a cut of astronomical profits into Marie’s personal accounts. But they loved her _image._ They weren’t her friends, no matter how many followers she had on Twitter or likes on her Instagram page. Her real friends were on the stage with her: Kami on vocals and occasional guitar, Azusa on keyboards and synthesizer, and Mira on drums.

            And even they could grate on her nerves after a while. Misery loves company, and close quarters breeds misery. It turns out a tour bus, or a private jet for that matter, doesn’t have infinite hiding places to be alone. Marie was pretty much always with someone, largely because she could get lost in a straight hallway with no doors, but also because security was necessary when you were part of a high-profile international pop group. But Azusa was endlessly picking about something (she could turn a 10-minute rundown of a song into an hour-long rehash), Kami was prone to fiery fits of temper (flipping off the TMZ cameras was her specialty), and Mira was just so affable and chill that it astounded Marie how anyone could be so damn _nice_ all the time. She needed a break longer than a wait in the Starbucks line could give her. She needed about ten years of uninterrupted sleep on a memory foam mattress and someone to break her addiction to platform heels.

            The very someone who’d be willing to offer any of that was currently halfway around the world, enjoying fall in Nevada while she watched the rain beat down on the window of her hotel room in Scotland. Figures.

            The dial tone seems to drone on forever in her ear as she paces the floor in bare feet, her hair done up in a messy ponytail because fuck it if Julio the hairdresser says it’s bad for breakage or whatever. Mira and Azusa are in the adjoining room, probably somewhere between dozing and making out, while Kami has shuffled off to update her Snapchat story with backstage shenanigans. Finally Marie hears the click on the other side of someone picking up.

            “H-hello?” she whispers into the phone.

            “Marie,” the voice on the other end sighs, and she’s _home_. She is home and ruffling her hands through silvery hair and making tea and lounging on the squashy purple couch he protested against for so long but finally acquiesced to once he realized he could stretch out and spoon her on it.

            “It’s so good to hear you. To hear your voice.”

            “I could say the same about you.”

            “How’s teaching?”

            “It’s teaching.” Marie can practically see Stein’s loping shoulders shrug through their connection. “Maka is brilliant as always, top of the class. Patty made her last exam into an origami elephant. I gave her extra credit for that one.”

            “Wow. All from one piece of paper?”

            “Mmhm.” Shuffling on the other side. “It’s after midnight in Glasgow. You should be getting some sleep.”

            “Hush, you, I can still read a clock. And have you been following my tour dates this whole time?”

            “I’m given to understand that’s what concerned boyfriends do.”

            Marie felt her heart jump into her throat, along with the lump that had been forming there since she’d tapped on Stein’s name in her contacts list. He was _concerned._ Stein, the man who claimed he couldn’t love, was showing it in the only way he knew how to over this distance. He wasn’t on Twitter or Instagram or anything like that as far as she knew—he’d roll his eyes playfully whenever she was updating things—and he avoided celebrity gossip like the plague. As far as she knew, he didn’t even turn on the TV when she wasn’t home. So any ugly rumors that could have circulated about M.M.K.A. (not that there were many, but haters always found a way) never reached his ears unless he found Marie cross-legged on the bed, fuming over her phone.

            “Thank you,” she finally breathes. “For…looking out for me. I mean that.”

            “I know.” God, she could hear the smirk in his voice. The pang of loneliness deep in her belly was all too sharp, and suddenly all she wanted was to be back home, eating cup noodles or whatever greasy takeout he was in the mood for. She wanted kisses that maybe got a little more heated and spooning that maybe got a little friskier. They could do the rest of the tour without her, couldn’t they? Kami sang lead on roughly half of their songs, and Mira had a good voice that didn’t need to be relegated to backup vocals. If push came to shove, one of their backup dancers could lip-sync to the audio tracks. With all the lasers and lights that were part of their act, who would notice she was gone?

            “Marie?” Right, she was on the phone. With her boyfriend, whom she loved desperately and wanted to be with right now, immediately.

            “Y-yeah?” Goddamn it, when did those tears creep up in her eye? Her breath hitches in her throat, and the tears spill over, hot on her cheek. Shit, shit, shit…

            “Take a deep breath. Tell me what’s wrong.”

            “Everything,” Marie sobs, flopping down on the bed facedown. “Everything is wrong.”

            “‘Everything’ is a pretty vague symptom, Marie. You’re not being a very cooperative patient.”

            “Shuddup. Dun wanna be cooperative.”

            “Are you feeling overwhelmed? Stressed? Is your manager being insufferable again?”

            “No, for once Leo is actually _not_ being a drama queen.” Marie flicks some tears off of her face with a chipped fingernail. “He’s keeping his head on straight and letting Azusa getting on everyone’s case for once.”

            “Mmm,” Stein muses. “And your bandmates.”

            “They’re fine, it’s all fine. I mean, Mira and Azusa get a little too hot and heavy sometimes in the middle of rehearsals, and Kami still gets pissy when Spirit drunk-dials her and leaves her long, sobbing voicemails about how he wishes they could undo the divorce. But that’s nothing new.”

            “So what seems to be the problem?”

            “Just…” Marie trails off. “I’m tired. And don’t tell me to just go to bed, because so help me, I will jump through this phone and rip the bolt right out of your skull.”

            “You’d have to be able to reach the top of my head first.”

            “ _Fuck off_.”

            “You know, I’ve never run an experiment testing why height seems to have an inverse proportion to temper—”

            “Franken, I’m hanging up on you.”

            “Marie, wait,” Stein says, and his tone is enough to give her pause. “You miss me, that much is clear. I just want you to know…I reciprocate.”

            Well, if that doesn’t send her right over the cliff of feels. A fresh batch of tears starts pouring out of her eye, and Maries presses her free hand over it to stem the flow, rendering herself completely blind. If anyone were to walk in right now, she’d probably leap up and defenestrate them, then cry some more as she cleaned up the blood and glass. She was not in the mood for anyone else right now, anything else right now. To hell with the tour and the autographs and all of it. She just wants to be home.

            She’s not exactly sure when she falls asleep, but she knows it’s to the sound of Stein murmuring her name and other soothing nothings in her ear.

***

            Marie wakes up in a _mood._ She’s normally not a morning person as it is, but the combination of emotional strife bubbling to the surface, plus an all-too-temporary release of said strife, resulted in a tiny blond Swedish woman who was even snappier than usual. Olivia tuts at her for having a puffy eye while she sits in the makeup chair for mascara and eyeliner; it takes every bit of effort not to bite the girl’s head off. She’s pretty sure she made an intern run for cover just by glaring at him, ducking under his clipboard. Her coffee tastes rancid and bitter, even though she asks Randy five times if he made sure two sugars found their way into her cup (they did). She can’t even put any effort into singing at rehearsal, letting the audio track carry her along while she half-heartedly lip-syncs. Kami looks like she wants to say something about it several times throughout the day, but Mira puts a firm hand on her shoulder and mouths _I think she needs to be alone_.

            She takes dinner by herself in her dressing room. Her phone keeps blowing up with Twitter notifications from fans, wishing her good luck at tonight’s concert. Marie puts it on silent and shoves it under a stack of magazines, unwilling to answer any of them. Insincere, all of them. They didn’t _know_ her. They wouldn’t understand how badly she just wanted to kiss off from all of this; as long as they got their shining new albums and splashy posters, what did they care?

            Her heart feels as heavy as her platform boots as she clunks out to center stage to join Kami in the dark, her fringed bell bottoms swishing. They squeeze each other’s hand for good luck, and the curtain rises. Green laser beams shot up from the stage apron, Azusa’s synthesizer roars to life, and Mira begins to flail on the drums.

            They bop and shimmy their way through one glittering disco-pop number, then another. Marie can’t help but think the lyrics are incredibly ironic for her at this point—M.M.K.A. has made a killing off of songs capitalizing on the lovelorn woman who’s either searching for her one true love, pining for it, or walking away from a bitter end. Once upon a time, these songs could have easily been the soundtrack to Marie’s life. Now she was happily in a relationship, but lacking the satisfaction of actually being there _with_ him.

            The drone of the synthesizer winds down after “Want Ya, Want Ya, Want Ya (Someone in the Night)”, and interns dash on stage with spray bottles and Dixie cups of water for everyone. It’s when Marie is taking a sip from her cup that she notices a tall, wavering figure out in the crowd.

            No. It can’t be. He hated concerts and being around people in general unless it was his students.  He definitely would not be here in the front row, in a black T-shirt for the band instead of his typical stitched-up sweater. But it _was_. Who else did Marie know that was six-foot-ten and had silver hair in spite of him being just over thirty?

            She can’t help herself. Marie clomps over to the edge of the stage, kneels, beckons Stein close, and throws her arms around his neck, kissing him as deeply as the distance would allow. Some zealous fans try to seize the opportunity to reach out and touch her, but security materializes and manage to push them back.

            “You came,” she mumbles against his cheek.

            “Of course,” he sighs back. “Had to. You missed me.”

            “Asshole,” she rolls her eyes and sighs. She can practically hear the camera shutters clicking around them, but ask her if she cares. She doesn’t, not one bit.

            When she gets up to resume their set, she’s radiant like the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me you didn't want a pop group AU with the adult ladies of Soul Eater. I dare you.
> 
> "Want Ya, Want Ya, Want Ya (Someone in the Night)" is my terrible reference to the ABBA song "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)", since M.M.K.A. is supposed to be a takeoff of ABBA. You know, in case the fringed bell bottoms and platform boots weren't big enough hints.
> 
> Also, this fic is a gift for the wonderful DollyPop, who's had me fall head over heels with the Marie/Stein ship lately. I had to write something to show my appreciation for everything she does for this great fandom <3


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